Christmas cavalcade 2023 - Part Three

Well, with just a day to go before we all get to fill our faces with turkey (or whatever your chosen alternative might be), there’s just enough time for one last installment in this year’s Christmas cavalcade.

 

If you were listening to the festive edition of the World’s Worst Records Radio Show earlier this week, you would have heard me playing snippets from a cute 1960s kid’s Christmas tale, Shirley Higginson’s The Lisping Elf. Well, here’s the whole thing for you to do with as you will. 

The Lisping Elf was issued at least twice -once in the early 1960s on Corpat Records (my copy, picked up in an antiques centre in Exeter, comes from this original pressing) and again, during the second half of the 1970s, by LEI records. The charming music (which always reminds me of the kind of thing you would hear during BBC schools’ broadcasts during the 1970s) was composed by Tommy Banks (a.k.a. the Reverend Thomas Banks) one half of the Canadian folk duo Tom and Judy. Ms. Higginson was an author – based in Edmonton I believe - who specialised in fables for children: her other works include Ralph the Flying Dog and Ice Cream Sneakers.

 

Next is a recent (like, this morning) YouTube find courtesy of the always excellent Thrift Store Vinyl channel. Issued in 1974, here from Austin, Texas are the Wilson family (well, the Wilson kids at least) ‘singing’ Santa’s Surprise. 

Composed by Dick Culp and Billy E. Nix (guitar player, songwriter and owner of Ben Records), the Wilson family would issue at least one further record on Darva, the 1976 single Candy Cane Castle, backed with Running Through The Sunshine.

 

And finally, for this year anyway, here’s a song-poem oddity from Gene Merlino. Professional vocalist Merlino did most of his song poem work for two labels, Preview (as Gene Marshall) and Columbine (as John Muir), but also recorded for a number of other companies under a variety of different names. 

Some time back, obscure music collector Sammy Reed unearthed a 45 on the George Liberace Songsmiths label (Lee’s violin-scratching brother had his own publishing company, which also dabbled in the song-poem world), the rather fun and jaunty Santa’s Mommy Must Have Had Quintuplets, and although the vocalist is not credited on the disc itself (the only credit is for the lyric’s author, Clate Hazelwood), the singer is unquestionably Merlino.

 

Well, there you go. Enjoy these tracks, and I shall be back soon with some decidedly un-festive fare for you all.

 

Happy Christmas!

 

Download Lisping HERE

 

Download Surprise HERE

 

Download Mommy HERE

Christmas Cavalcade 2023 - Part Two

A bunch of random, Christmassy nonsense for you today, brought together simply because these singles are seasonal and have not featured on the blog before. Make of this lot what you will.

 

First up, from the late comic actor Frank Kelly, is Christmas Countdown, a song that provided the man best known for playing Father Jack Hackett in the brilliant (if now somewhat overshadowed by having been co-created by a toxic loon) sitcom Father Ted. Not only would Christmas Countdown reward Frank with a top 30 hit in British singles charts (during Christmas week 1983), but it also saw him performing on Top of the Pops! 

The disc had first been issued, in Ireland, in 1980, on the tiny Lunar Records label, but it was resurrected two years later and became a surprise hit locally, making number eight on the Irish charts. It was also a top 20 hit in Australia. Kelly had form when it came to Christmas-themed novelties: in 1979 he issued (via Dublin label Crashed Records) the new wave-inspired comedy single Dear Santa, this time credited – in a tip of the hat to Mr Lydon – Rotton Frank. As it’s the season, I have also included that track here for you to enjoy (or endure!)

 

Next is the A-side of a 45 from Bob Anthony, the cabaret singer whose tribute album to the island of Jersey I featured on the blog back in November 2021. This time he’s singing about spending the festive season in the slightly less exotic locale of London: Christmas in London first appeared as a single in 1978 (on Bob’s own Regis Rose label, based at his home address in Bognor Regis), before being compiled as part of his early 1980s album Magic of London.

 

America’s amateur poets and lyric writers were hot on Christmas. So it should be no surprise that there are quite literally hundreds of festive-themed song-poems out there. All of the big names of the genre, including Rodd Keith, Gene Marshall, Cara Stewart and Norm Burns have Christmassy clunkers in their catalogues, and many have already appeared on this very blog, but to round off today’s post is one I have not featured before now. 

From the pen of Norridge Mayhems, a.k.a Norris the Troubadour, here are the Seaboard Coastliners – an entirely studio-fabricated band (and the same act that appeared as the Ping Pongs on the utterly brilliant Pinky Tail) – and the wonderfully atonal Christmas Time Philosophy. 

I love this track. The singer could not sound more bored, and it's clear that whoever has been given the job of trying to keep time has never seen a drum before. It feels as if the only thing on the minds of the participants is to get this recording finished as quickly as possible and get down to the pub to begin their own seasonal celebrations. 

The song first appeared on the 1976 double LP Our Centennial Album, before being compiled on the rather wonderful song-poem collection Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four? In 2003.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Santa HERE

Download Countdown HERE

Download London HERE

Download Philosophy HERE

Christmas Cavalcade 2023 - Part One

You will have to forgive me for the paucity of posts this year, it's been a busy one. One of the unfortunate byproducts of aging is having to deal with health issues (in others as well as myself), the death of family and friends (and friends who have become family), and life in general: this year I have published my latest book, moved house twice (which resulted in putting my entire record and CD collection into storage for six months), made several 'live' appearances and have been beavering away on my next tome. So, apologies for so few blog entries during 2023; I hope to make it up to you in 2024.

But it's almost Christmas, and what would this time of year be without a handful of festive failures for you? that's right, it's time for the first installment of the annual Christmas Cavalcade! Hold on to your Santa hats...

First up is both sides of a 45 issued in the US in 1975, the first of two singles issued by The Whales Featuring Rathbone and His Tuba. Their debut was this bizarre, and utterly pointless cover of the 1958 hit from David Seville and the Chipmunks, namely The Chipmunk Song, backed by a cover of a 1948 number originally popularised by singing cowboy Gene Autrey, If It Doesn't Snow on Christmas. The Whales' schtick was to do the opposite of what the Chipmunks had done so successfully, namely instead of speeding up the vocal track to sound like tiny furry creatures, the producers of this dreck (Mickey Joe Yannich and Bobby Lee), slowed the vocal down to suggest the sound that a huge, lumbering ocean leviathan might make. Unsurprisingly this and the follow-up, I Want to be the Only Whale (to Graduate From Yale) were not hits, and the Whales sank without a trace.  

And talking of Chipmunks rip-offs, the year after Alvin and Co had their big breakthrough, Capitol Records retaliated with Dancer, Prancer and Nervous (the Singing Reindeer) and their debut offering The Happy Reindeer. Like the Whales, these three also issued a second 45, coupling The Happy Birthday Song with I Wanna Be an Easter Bunny. Capitol clearly thought they had a hit on their hands, even issuing a promotional EP featuring the voice of Nervous introducing segments for regional radio play, but although The Happy Reindeer was a modest hit, the follow-up failed to chart and that was the end of that. Incidentally, the B-side of The Happy Reindeer, Dancer's Waltz, was simply an instrumental version of the plug side.

So, enjoy these three tracks for now... there will be more soon!

Download Chipmunk HERE

Download Snow HERE

Download Happy HERE